


There's A Dead Body At The End Of This Book

by thisislegit



Category: Lupin III
Genre: Childhood Memories, Emotional Hurt, Exposition, Gen, Loss of Parent(s), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:35:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22546402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisislegit/pseuds/thisislegit
Summary: When the car stopped, they were in front of a house. Poor weather chipped the paint away on the wood paneling. The narrow columns that held up the canvas made to shield the porch from sunlight was lopsided. Whether it was the first house they lived in or the first house she found he didn’t know. She parked the car under the shield of a tree with a wide trunk and long branches that dipped and grazed the top of the roof with its tips.He stopped going to public school.
Relationships: Jigen Daisuke/Arsène Lupin III
Comments: 13
Kudos: 75





	There's A Dead Body At The End Of This Book

**Author's Note:**

> un-beta'd

Jigen Daisuke did not remember much of his mother. The ages zero to five a blank slate until the faint images of a blue dress with pink flowers appears in his prereferral vision. He remembers his sixth birthday with a cake that sat small and lopsided in front of him but brimming with a large candle that didn’t match how many years passed for him. On his sixth birthday the candle read seven.

A low voice whispered into his ear, “Let’s pretend you’re a big boy now.”

He wouldn’t notice the dirt that clung to his fingers as he lifted his hands from the table to take his plastic fork and destroy the dessert that might’ve looked like him a little bit. He’d remember the rough cotton fabric that scratched against his cheeks when he was finished. The record playing a trumpet as hands too big for his own took his stubby fingers and lifted and spun him around the yellow tiled floor. In that first memory, her face is blurred from the kitchen lights above until they fizzle out, and the music stops. On his sixth birthday, he spent the night in his mothers’ bed, clinging to her warmth, while the cold winter air ate at walls with no insulation.

His memories didn’t blur from here, but they didn’t grow more vivid either. Repression and time did things to a person’s mind. Public school was a nasty place with nastier people. The children would range in quality, and the influence of adults would pull the ones that questioned his appearance to the nasty side very quickly. He did not cry. To cry there would be to give the public something to use against him. His tears were saved after getting off the bus for the long trek home past houses with fresh paint to a complex whose bricks were lopsided in all the wrong ways. He and his mother would come home at the same time. Rough cotton wiped away the tear tracks. Tacky lips would kiss his forehead. A hydrox cookie would be slipped into his hand when he was ready to come inside. The kids at school ate oreos. His mother hated the taste. She said the cream was too sweet, and having never tried them, he couldn’t find room to argue. He was no longer a messy eater, but the rough cotton came to his fingers afterwards to scratch into the gaps and bends until his palm was crumb free.

One day, he didn’t know if his mother had grown tired of his tears or the place that caused them, but it was dark when she ushered him into the beat up Sudan packed with what belongings could fit and started to drive. He imagined a man running alongside the car after the sun went down. A silhouetted figure with legs long enough to go as fast as fifty or so miles per hour. He’d napped between buildings turning to tree line and back again. He only jarred awake when the road went from concrete to dirt and the incline sharpened. When the car stopped, they were in front of a house. Poor weather chipped the paint away on the wood paneling. The narrow columns that held up the canvas made to shield the porch from sunlight was lopsided. Whether it was the first house they lived in or the first house she found he didn’t know. She parked the car under the shield of a tree with a wide trunk and long branches that dipped and grazed the top of the roof with its tips.

He stopped going to public school.

The sad looking building was his grandmother’s house. His mother never mentioned his grandfather. His mother never mentioned his father. The men in her life, if there were any, did not want to meet him for reasons he could only assume as he grew older. Magazines he found in the office told him his mother was not beautiful but rather plain. He shared her nose, her cheekbones, and her wild hair, but the rest came from a man he’d never meet. Books in the library described his mother’s features as mature and witchy, elegant and gaunt, handsome and wretched, a stream of contradictions until he decided for himself what mattered. She had strong legs from moving bookshelves and tables around the house. Her hands were so skilled they kept any type of hair appearing well kept until the hair tie was removed. Her arms were long enough for good hugs. She had a kind smile. These were what mattered. He wanted to think his mother looked best when she was smiling. That’s what the magazines told him about women, but the smiles of the blonde women on the covers looked nothing like hers. For his mother, it didn’t matter when, or at what, or with who, but the corners of her lips turning up and the line of her shoulders dropping was always a sign that something good had happened. Which, in itself, was something beautiful.

She’d leave a kiss on his cheek in that old house early in the morning with a bowl of oatmeal he put too much sugar in. During that time, he’d make up games. He’d follow the tree line down to the Hudson river and back again. He’d read, and his grandmother had an unusual amount of books. There were stories of warriors fighting armies on their own, women and men whose lovers had left or come back, some filled with numbers he didn’t understand, but mostly there were books with languages. The study of language, different languages, how to speak certain languages, the study of those languages, and the rest of the book case sat behind that language barrier.

He remembered the first time he tried speaking Japanese to his mother where she corrected him in what he believed in his heart was a perfect accent. They shared a grin over the wobbly kitchen table, and it was like a miner struck an oil well. The menu in the house changed over time, but only for dinner and special occasions. Only when the money was there, and every time he got to eat something new he and his mother talked with her perfect accent and his broken grammar about their day in the language that matched.

He was eleven when his mother told him about his grandfather. He fell from a tree and broke his tibia on a peak of stone between blades of grass. His mother, Juliette, he’d learn was her name after hearing a friend call out to her on a grocery trip, sat by him on the couch. His wrapped up leg rested propped onto a pillow, and he had a flat wooden stick with fingers if things started to get itchy.

“It’s too bad about this leg.” She touched the cast with the tips of her fingers. “You can’t go treasure hunting like this.”

He looked from under his fringe with narrowed eyes.

“It’s the truth. The last thing your grandfather left us, but he told me I’m out of luck because only a man can find it.”

His mother never mentioned any uncles or aunts, which meant she must’ve been like him. Which meant his grandfather was a real bastard.

“Do you know those white flowers behind the house?”

He nodded.

“The secret to getting there is to pluck one and dip the petals in white wine. After that, drop it into the river and follow it down as fast as your legs can carry you. When it stops, that’s X marks the spot. You can only find it if you dig deep enough.”

He was too old to believe in hidden treasures, but the books in the library told him that a dead person leaving you a gift was something tangible. His days of boredom turned into days of planning to get what his grandfather buried. He thought about gold coins and rubies as he drew plans onto scraps of paper with pencils that bore long gone erasers. Diamonds and wads of cash filled his dreams for him to wake up the next morning and shovel oatmeal in his mouth so he could hobble back into the office where the maps laid on the desk. The morning the cast came off was the same day he’d broken a two dollar bottle of wine trying to get the cork out.

Inside the house, on the kitchen counter, sat an opened bottle of wine and stray flower petals every morning when spring came. Each time the stem dropped from his fingers and hit the water, he felt he was getting a little bit faster. He noticed his body changing, but he’d read what would happen before it started. His legs grew longer. Weird smells would come off his body. He went from eating one bowl of oatmeal to two in the mornings and shoveled as many beans or rice into his mouth for dinner only after he’d set aside lunch excess for his mother to take to work.

The light blue dress his mother favored grew more creased. The sweet pink of the flowers faded. He’d made a dye with tools he found in the attic and berries from the woods, but she smiled and patted his cheek when he offered to fix it.

She was coming home later. He learned to cook. He burned a lot of food but ate it anyway. His fingers were easily cut with a knife or shaved with a peeler until his movements grew more practiced and less clumsy. He improvised with recipes from books and didn’t always like the results but refused to waste anything. His mother ate whatever he cooked. His visits to the river dwindled. The car broke down. An older looking car that spat grease from the exhaust and held heat like a volcano replaced it. There was one book about cars in the library with a signature in the back he couldn’t decipher. Jig something. His mother brought instructional pamphlets from the shop that gave them the car. He learned how to change the oil, how to replace a tire, and how to bump a dent out with her instruction. The pamphlets were smudged with black fluids by the time he had the information memorized. He’d get a light knock on the head from her when he’d forgotten something, but she always smoothed it away with a pat and a smile.

A strange man came to the house in a red Mercedes asking for someone named Junko. He told the man there was no one with that name here, and the shiny car drove back downhill. She was coming home later. He left a plate wrapped for her on the counter before he went to bed. Her lunches began to go untouched, and he’d eat them before they went bad. He listened to the radio when he read. He played records when he cleaned. He hummed to himself when he fixed the car. He hated math but studied it anyway. It was somewhere to put his frustration. Where was she going? He never asked. On special occasions over dinner, they talked about their days with her tired voice and his expanded vocabulary in the language that matched.

One week after Valentine’s Day, she didn’t come home. He waited for the sputtering of the car to spiral up the driveway. He went downhill and across the road to the farmhouse where they got butter and milk, but the owners hadn’t seen her. He made dinner and prepped her lunches eating them before they went bad until he ran out of food. He read books about missing people both real and fictional to try and find a motive or clues as to where she’d gone. He listened to people talk on the radio, but he never heard her name when talk of police work came up. Was he the only one who would’ve reported her absence? Why hadn’t her friends come? Her co-workers? He’d seen her use the phone, so he knew it worked, but no one called to ask about her. He was sixteen years old when he made the long trek back to the city leaving his grandmother’s house to rot on a hill by the river.

Jigen bussed tables for an underground mafia operation when a young woman came into the restaurant with papers clutched in her hands. He’d dropped the tray of dishware he was holding. She’d looked almost nothing like his mother and everything like him. He swept up the mess calling out for a smoke break and followed her outside. They stood huddled in an alleyway while she spoke in a low voice and showed him pictures. Twins. Another woman. The chance of losing a reputation. Her father’s recent passing. His father’s recent passing.

“She never told me.” He ignored the dulled ache in his chest. Then he looked at the woman. His sister. Her cheeks were more filled out, her hair just as wild as his own, but her eyes were the same down-turned tired looking eyes with monolids as his mother. She looked healthy. Healthier than him.

“They killed him, you know,” She said as she shoved the papers into her jacket. “He made too much money and someone wanted his job.”

He nodded and pushed himself further against the wall when he felt the first drop of rain.

“He didn’t leave me anything but papers and pictures.” She was glaring at the trash cans. A rat skittered by.

“Why’d you bother coming here?”

She shrugged. “Got nowhere else to go. Not like I can afford dance lessons anymore.”

“You dance?”

“I do…I did. My dreams of dancing on Broadway died with him. Literally.”

“Tch, I can’t give ya Broadway.” He pulled out a bent-up pall mall and placed it between his lips. “But I can do you one better.”

There was confusion in her expression as she watched him light his cigarette.

He was seventeen when the strange man in the red Mercedes greeted him in a black and white photo clutched in his sister’s hands. The same year, a different man built a house seven miles from the sagging building he’d last called home.

To say that was the last time he thought of his mother would be neither accurate nor inaccurate. When he shaved, it was her face that greeted him in the mirror, so he stopped. A box of hydrox cookies stayed in the glovebox of any car he owned, rented, or stole while he was using it. He was playing balance beam with his sister and his work life. He rarely stayed in the cramped studio apartment they’d rented together. A bottle of white wine sat corked in the corner. She’d ask him every week when he planned on drinking it, but he’d shrug and tell her he’d get to it later.

In between jobs, he was shuffling her to another audition, another photo shoot, another event for her to wine and dine and pretend she’s important enough that someone would sign her. She was diligent. Determined. Stupid smart. Yet, the type of working world he was pushing her towards had its own influence. When she forgot to eat, he’d give her a light knock on the head but soothed it with a pat and a smile. When he caught her pinching at her waist or tying the measuring tape too tight around her legs, he’d pry the fabric from her fingers and talk to her with whatever words came to mind.

They spoke the same language, but it was like her English was different than his own. There was no stretch to her words when she was tired or excited. Her consonants didn’t drag over her tongue. Instead, they sparked out like those firecrackers that didn’t seem to stop crackling. She spoke quickly, but she wasn’t animated. It was like she’d always been in a rush to get out what she wanted to say or else no one would hear. She’d clamp her lips shut when she saw Jigen open his mouth. He wondered what kind of man his father was for her to do that. She never heard him speak any words outside of English. He never used his language skills outside of a job.

The day she was signed was the day Jigen received his magnum. She was exotic enough for this new magazine being printed in California. She had to move. He had the funds. He didn’t tell her she took all he had when she left. She was going places, and he wasn’t, so he knew where the money should’ve gone. Her letters were forthcoming until they weren’t but that was from his prompting. He moved around too much. She needed to wait until he sent a letter first so she knew which address it would go to. His reward was seeing her face on the cover of some fashion zine in the supermarket. It was weird. She looked like mom with all the makeup.

He never thought he’d find himself back in the area near the Hudson river. Arsène Lupin III was both the smartest man he’d ever met, and the dumbest man he ever fucked. He long accepted his life would be filled with contradictions, but the chances of being as entangled with a living one as he was never popped into his head. They were robbing some senile bastard near Catskill who was hoarding millions in pottery and ceramics. Their target was an old vase worth 70 million. Sir Dale Pendington, the old guy they were robbing, was holding a special event tonight. His deeds were seedy and well known in the underground, so to avoid suspicion Jigen was forced into the role of the damsel. He had to shave. Wax even. Transparent stockings hid only so much body hair, and he didn’t like peeling latex off his bare chest in any low collared disguise.

The dress was too tight around his thighs. He felt restricted. He wasn’t cut out for this. Whereas Lupin knew how to be dainty, Jigen struggled with breaking old habits. Don’t just grab whatever plates of hors d’oeuvres the waiters bring by. Take one glass of wine. Casual flirting was easy, but he had to avoid snapping wrists when they got handsy. Eventually the host came to greet them, but he froze when he made eye contact with Jigen. Lupin didn’t tense. The thief could sense the change of atmosphere if a fly farted, but he did press his fingers more firmly into the back of Jigen’s palm.

“I killed you.” Sir Pendington said with conviction in his tone.

Jigen tried not to let his heart get caught in his throat. Was there poison in the wine? In the food? He would’ve noticed the change in taste if there was, wouldn’t he?

Lupin spoke next, easy and soothing, “Sir, I think you must be mistaken.”

“I killed you. I _killed_ you! Security! SECURITY!” Sir Pendington was snarling. His wine glass was thrown at their feet. “GET OUT. GET OUT MONSTER. DEMON. SECURITY.”

A crowd gathered at this point. Men in black suits were trying to force their way through, but Lupin was slicker than snot in getting them out of there. He questioned Jigen after they got to the car. He wanted to know what the hell that was all about. Jigen had his own questions. The only person in the world who looked like him was his sister, and he’d seen Wako on live TV last night. Hell, she called him after the show when she got home asking when they’d meet up next. He kept it vague. She was too high up in the world for him to finalize details. He was too deep in the underworld to put a target on her back. The plan changed. Lupin couldn’t get the full layout of the mansion before they had to flee, but he knew enough. From there it was the same song and dance. Get in, fuck up, grab the thing they were coming to steal, get out. Jigen almost inhaled too much sleeping gas. Lupin tried fist fighting some guy three times his size. They dodged bullets and lasers. The owner of the house even decided to have wild boars released when all else failed which was super illegal and petty as shit.

The pair lounged on the hood of the car. His hands rested behind his head while Lupin looked over their bounty to check for authenticity. They’d been tricked before by the person they planned to rob from and the police. It was better safe than sorry. He peeked from under his hat to watch the line of Lupin’s shoulders relax. It was real.

“I used to play around here.” The words left his mouth before he could stop them. Maybe this place was making him sentimental.

Lupin’s posture was ramrod straight showing that his attention was caught. They didn’t mince the past much unless someone came out of it with guns ablaze. The thief didn’t interrupt, but he set the vase between them.

“Treasure huntin’. My ma told me about this trick to get what my grandpa left for us.”

“Did she make you a crayon map?”

“Nope. There were these white flowers that grew in the yard. You had to dip ‘em in white wine and send them down the river.”

“Then what?”

“You chased it until it stopped, and that’s where the treasure would be.”

Lupin snorted. “Sounds like a way to get you out of the house.”

It probably was. He pushed his hat forward.

“Let’s try it.”

Whiskey, sake, and some fruity cocktail drinks were all they could find in the trunk. Lupin found several types of white flowers from the trees and sprouting from the ground. Jigen picked out the correct one and had the rest shoved under his hat by spindly fingers. Since they didn’t have wine, the clear peach cocktail drink would have to do. He had no idea if it was sugar content or alcohol content that made it work, but the small bottle packed both.

“Can’t believe your mom had you wasting wine everyday.”

“It was two dollar wine.” Jigen saw it in the store when they were getting snacks for the hotel. It was eight dollars now.

“What’re the rules? Do we run with or without shoes?”

“There…really weren’t any, I guess.” He couldn’t use the car when he was younger. Maybe she told him only a man could find it so he wouldn’t ask. What was he talking about? Their beat up car wouldn’t be able to handle driving through the woods to follow a pesky flower down the river. They couldn’t afford it. Lupin could.

“Oh, a loophole. Let’s exploit it. Drop that baby in, and let’s drive.” Lupin climbed into the drivers seat from the window. The car roared to life.

It’d been so long since he’d done this. The cold water touched the back of his knuckles as the current wiggled the stem free of his fingers. His heart raced in his chest. He bolted for the Fiat climbing in through the sunroof when Lupin slammed on the gas. There was rain the night before. The water was in a rush to get out to the ocean. Wind kissed his cheeks and he held on tight to his hat. He remembered when the current outsmarted him whisking the flower away, he’d take a stick from edge of the water and draw a line in the dirt. Normal kids would have their height measured on the wall by the doorway. His growth was measured by long it took him to scrub the dirt off in the bathtub from running a little further than last time.

The Fiat took a hard curve along one of the rivers’ branches where the water narrowed into a stream. Jigen realized he never lived by the river bed, but near one of it’s branches because he wouldn’t have been able to play in a river and not get pulled under. Lupin looped the car between trees and through bushes. Jigen ducked under branches. He spat leaves out of his mouth. His cheeks were definitely scraped. They drove until the stream tapered off and the brakes screeched through the wet grass. A field of the same white flowers stood in front of them with their petals open towards the moon.

“Now what?”

“Now…we dig. Dig as deep as we can.”

Lupin saluted him, “Sure thing, boss.”

This was crazy. Jigen thought about how far they’d driven to get here as they dug. He would’ve never been able to run all the way here unless he took camping breaks in between. There probably wasn’t anything here. A part of him didn’t like that he was destroying the flower bed, but his curiosity won over his guilt. If it didn’t, he wouldn’t have become a thief. If it didn’t he’d have been dead a long time ago. Digging with two people was faster than digging by himself, but that didn’t say much. They were knee deep in a hole, and the sky grew blacker. How deep were they supposed to dig? How wide was the area? How big was the treasure? He’d never brought a shovel with him on his runs along the river bank. What would he have done if it were closer, and he’d made it? Would he have dug with his hands? Would he have lined the area with sticks in a circle and brought the supplies the next day? His plans outlined how to move the money back home but never how to get to it.

They were thigh deep in the hole. Lupin was breathing hard through his lips. Jigen wasn’t much better. He was moving dirt aside covering flowers and patting loose soil with the back of his shovel to keep Lupin from getting buried. Why hadn’t he asked more questions when his mother told him the story? Why didn’t she ignore her dad’s word and look for it herself? Was it all a trick? Was it to get him out of the house? She wasn’t the type to lie. She tended to withhold truths she didn’t think were important or might hurt his feelings. He thought of their situation, and he loved her for it. He thought of his sister, and he hated her for it. The sky turned purple. Standing chest deep in the hole was when a distinct _tunk_ came from Lupin’s shovel. They grinned at each other. The shovels were tossed aside in favor of their hands. Jigen’s hands were clumsy in his haste. His nails caught dirt and scratched over Lupin’s fingers.

Their bounty was a dirty skull with a hole in the middle of its forehead. Lupin’s gaze bored into him, but Jigen thought about what this meant. He said nothing as his hands continued to move dirt aside, his touch gentler now. The bones were starting to decompose, and among them were scraps of dirty blue fabric with a faded flower print. He thought about how long it would’ve taken him to run here on his short legs when he was a kid. He thought about how late she was coming home. He thought about the car never pulling into the driveway. How creased her dress would look. The dinner tonight. That old man’s words. How the corpse looked like it was lying on it’s stomach and reaching out for something. Something stolen. How many times had she-. His mind stuttered around the thought. He didn’t want to imagine it. Imagine her.

Going over to the wall of dirt, he netted his fingers together and crouched down. Lupin took the hint and used the leverage to get out of the hole. He wondered how he looked. How many times had he come home covered in dirt? He took off his jacket and laid it over the rib cage. He took off his hat and set it onto the skull. He’d never given her anything nice. Lupin helped him out. Jigen started to put the dirt back. He couldn’t move her. A familiar burning came to the edges of his eyes but he held it at bay. Lupin was using his full body to push heaps of dirt back into the hole. At some point, Jigen dropped his shovel to do the same. He didn’t know if it was faster. If the rain that came in spring would break the loose soil. If the area would flood and reveal her to the sky so animals and bacteria were left to pick at the bones. The sun had long risen when they’d finished.

The walk back to the Fiat was quiet. He took his place in the passenger seat and used a handkerchief to wipe off his hands. Rough cotton scratched into the bends and gaps. The burning behind his eyes returned. He started to reach into his pocket for a cigarette. His fist hit the top of the dash first. The glovebox opened. Inside was a pack of hydrox. One cookie left. He bit it in half. His shoulders curled in towards his body. The burning behind his eyes wouldn’t stop. He hunched forward until his forehead touched the dashboard. No one had ever looked for her. He closed his eyes as tears escaped and swallowed his mouthful. He’d never looked for her. He hugged himself, the other half of the cookie falling to the carpet stained with cigarette burns and ash. He was six blowing out his candle on a lopsided cake. He was eight walking home from the bus stop wiping tears and snot from his face with his sleeves. He was eleven with a broken leg making plans for the future. He was thirteen cutting potatoes for the first time in the kitchen. He was fifteen changing the oil for a beat up car that sputtered down the hill every morning. He was sixteen asleep in his room when she tried to come home. She tried to come home. He wailed.

It was a Tuesday morning, in the third week of April, that Jigen Daisuke buried his mother.

**Author's Note:**

> i had a dream about chasing flowers down canals


End file.
